Dolsot bibimbap: Korean stone bowl fried rice (돌솥 비빔밥)

ibimbap to Koreans is what pizza is to Italians, a beloved staple. A bowl of rice topped with stripes of vegetables, meat or seafood. Like pizza toppings, the variety is limitless.

My favourite one is sanchae bibimbap (산채비빔밥) that I yet have to find in London restaurants. Sanchae (산채 or 山菜) stands for "mountain vegetables". Every year lively packs of chirpy Korean pensioners venture out into the mountainous areas to look for looking for gosari (고사리) or fiddleheads, immature fronds of bracken fern, and an array of various edible leafs that only have Latin names in English.

But here I am on about a less exotic and more widely available type of bibimbap, dolsot bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥). Most of times it features raw, uncooked toppings because it is served in a piping hot stone bowl. The toppings get cooked as you stir them with the rice and douse with the liquid version of gochujang. I like to see shock and bewilderment on the faces of my friends when they are served a bibimbap bowl with a raw egg on top and how it changes to as it gets nicely cooked right in front of them.